


Perfect Authentic Cadence

by implication_realization



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Time Travel, Fix-It of Sorts, Gen, Time Travel, could also be interpreted as an afterlife fic, happy and sweet, no beta I have no friends, old ben had chronic pain fight me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-21
Updated: 2021-01-21
Packaged: 2021-03-12 18:35:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28889949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/implication_realization/pseuds/implication_realization
Summary: As far as Obi-Wan is concerned, waking up in the room he slept in as a Padawan is a final gift from the force. Everyone else is reasonably concerned.(In western music theory, a perfect authentic cadence is a type of end-phrase motion that is particularly satisfying and stable. ‘Cadence’ comes from the Latin ‘cadencia,’ or ‘a falling.’)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 99





	Perfect Authentic Cadence

Obi-Wan woke up. 

(In retrospect, this would be noteworthy)

He felt… cozy. 

Or rather, he felt a unique mix of contentment and familiar grief that didn’t have a name in any language he knew, but “cozy” was pretty close. There was none of that horrible heartbreak that lived in the space between his bones, the deep exhaustion that burrowed into the farthest corners of his lungs, or the despair that sat just inside his throat. 

He was laying in a bed and there were heavy, warm blankets piled on top of him. The air was gentle. He opened his eyes (because he had those again) and the ceiling was familiar. So was the rest of the room. This was where he’d slept with certain regularity for something resembling a decade while he was Qui-Gon’s padawan. It was just as he remembered it; likely, he suspected, because it was formed from his own memories.

The force felt as it should, too. Not as he remembered it, ~~because Mustafar~~ because at some point between the neverending deaths of the troopers under his command and the pertinacious sands that were his only faithful companion in the end, Obi-Wan had forgotten what the force felt like before it all happened. But there it was, as it had been, and it was beautiful.

It was night in this memory. Or force vision. Or proper one-with-the-force afterlife? The details of ceasing to be a force ghost were never explained to him, so Obi-Wan couldn’t say exactly what was happening, but he was grateful. He was cozy, his pain levels were good, and he was revisiting a fond memory. His time was over. He could rest now.

He was crying. There was no noise or shaking, just a shuddered breath and tears. 

For a while there was _only_ crying. That was fine. There was a lot to cry about, and Obi-Wan figured tears were a fine way to end things. Time was marked only by the pilgrimage of saline down the sides of his face, past his ears, and onto the bed right above his shoulders. 

There was stillness.

(There is no emotion, there is peace. There is no chaos, there is harmony. There is no passion, there is serenity. Obi-Wan had known the Code for a lifetime and more. He had spent hours meditating on the nuance hidden behind simplistic words, forging a deeper and deeper understanding of the force through arbitrary phrases that could just as well be empty, placating lies. There was a point in his life, a dot on a map in a neverending waste, where he was convinced they _were_ empty. As an initiate, Obi-Wan thought that if he could just banish his emotion and stomp on all hints of passion, he could achieve the lauded peace, ascetic serenity, oneness with the force. It did not work. When people he knew, cared about, and loved started dying he despised the Code and all it stood for because there _was_ death and it _hurt_ and the Code would tell him that it shouldn’t. Throughout the war there was never knowledge or harmony, there was only chaos and death and the Jedi as the Sith’s pawns. Once in his ~~meditation~~ ~~rumination~~ wallowing in the desert, he truly believed that the Jedi were only ever a plight on the galaxy. Yet somehow, at the end of the world, Obi-Wan found peace. Perhaps he would have even been considered wise were there anyone around to share his thoughts with. In the desert, on the death star, as a ghost in the force, Obi-Wan knew a fleeting and intimate understanding of the force that would slip from his grip like sand because he could never bear to hold it tight enough. Now that he is one with the force, everything stands still and there is nothing to pull the sands from his fingers. There is stillness.)

There was stillness. And then the door opened.

“Obi-Wan, what is it? Are you okay?”

 _Oh._ Something solid inside him crumbled. This, too, is just like it was when he was a child. 

“I can feel it in the force, you are unsettled. What’s wrong?”

“Qui-Gon,” he’s here. His master has come for him. Obi-Wan holds out his arms (young, lithe) in supplication.

“Padawan, are you alright?” Obi-Wan had rarely asked for hugs from Qui-Gon when he was young, had feared his master's reaction should he confess to wanting them. He would not miss this opportunity over any such insecurities now. 

“Just… humor me?” _Please._ Qui-Gon was standing right next to his bed now. So close. Despite the visible concern, Qui-Gon obliged his padawan with a hug. Obi-Wan could not remember the last time he had been touched by another living thing (had someone grabbed his shoulder on the death star, on the millenium falcon?) or been held by someone he trusted (it would have been Cody, unless Bail had done so when they separated the twins. That time was a bit hazy in his memories) but he could remember distinctly the last time Qui-Gon had hugged him, and it has been so long ago. Somehow he had gone decades and decades without realizing that something inside him was rigid but now it could let go. This time there was shaking and noise. Obi-Wan was crying and Qui-Gon was holding him tight and it was all over now. He could rest.

**Author's Note:**

> So, the idea was that this would be a multi-chapter fic where the saving the world thing happened off screen and I just got to write about Obi-Wan adjusting to his new safe and warm life (no I’m not projecting at all what are you talking about), but I wrote this in my head while falling asleep, knowing full well I wouldn’t be able to remember any of it when I woke up and what would you know, forgot it all. I did spend some time working on rescuing the further parts of the story from my subconscious but kinda gave up, so this is all you’re gonna get.


End file.
